Ogilvy
by Crow's Talon
Summary: This is a posthumous biography of the much-maligned astronomer Andrew Ogilvy, from his childhood and involvement with the sciences to his early and violent death.
1. Introductory Note

_Disclaimer: I don't own TWOTW. This is a nonprofit fan creation and no copyright infringement is intended._

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><p><strong><em>Introductory Note<em>**

This is a biography of a much-maligned individual who is no longer with us to defend himself, and so the job falls to someone else to defend him instead. I refer to the late Andrew Ogilvy, formerly curator of the Hilton Observatory at Ottershaw, who died fifteen years ago during our war with Mars. His formerly solid reputation as an astronomer and as a man of science has suffered after the Martian invasion and the events following it. He had few friends then, and even fewer now after his death at the Massacre at Horsell Common. Therefore, I feel it is my place to defend the curator from recent accusations of incompetence and worse directed at his person, as my father, a man of sound mind and a judge of good character, was one of his closest friends before the Martian invasion.

Ogilvy's detractors in the scientific community and the newspapers accuse him of arrogance, stupidity, and mulishness. There is much anger after all the English people suffered under the Martians, in particular the people of London and of the Home Counties. This anger is, of course, justified – I also lost family members to the Martian Heat-Ray and fled London with my mother and sisters, so I am well aware of the horrors of 1900 – but I believe that attacks on Mr. Ogilvy's record as a scientist and on his personal life are uncalled for and unjustified. The most severe of the charges is that Mr. Ogilvy, through his ignorance and reckless behaviour, was indirectly responsible for the death of Sir Timothy Stent, the Astronomer Royal, also a victim of the massacre. After the war, investigations were done on Stent's death and the massacre in general, resulting in a minor scandal in the field of astronomy.

While Mr. Stent's death is a tragedy, since he was a highly talented astronomer by all accounts and a devoted servant of the state, Mr. Ogilvy's role in the scandal has been exaggerated. Petty revenge on a victim of the tragedy in Stent's name or anyone else's is unnecessary. Stent's reputation as a scientist is secure, his widow provided for, and a painting of him at the height of his powers hangs at the Royal Academy. If anything, his dramatic rise and even more dramatic death only made him more celebrated, as is made clear by the bronze statue of him that stands a mile from Horsell Common as a memorial to the slain there.

Ogilvy himself is dead, his observatory in ruins, his reputation in his field largely disgraced, and what was left of his remains that wasn't burned beyond recognition or eaten by the crows is buried where he fell on the common. His only recognition on the memorial is a brief mention of his name alongside the others as one of those wretches killed by the Martians – it is curious how he is almost completely unmourned by all but his handful of friends but people are quick to lay blame at his feet. I would argue for mercy, since the man has been punished enough.

There are several popular inaccuracies about the events at and surrounding the massacre that need correcting – it does not help that most of Ogilvy's closest companions who could have helped correct these inaccuracies died with him, and the diplomatic team that he was a member of at the time of the massacre had no survivors. I had to rely on people who saw and overheard what happened and piece things together where necessary. However, what is fairly certain is that Andrew Ogilvy's treatment by today's scientific establishment and his scapegoating for the incident in general are deplorable and that he was not the only person to blame for the massacre on the common.

The account of his life in these pages is based in large part on public records – back issues of newspapers, journals, letters, and family histories. I have needed to fill some parts in with reasonable guesses as to individuals' behavior and motives where documents were destroyed by the Martians or lost. I have also interviewed eyewitnesses and survivors of the Martian war who knew Ogilvy when he was alive – friends, schoolmates, colleagues, and his surviving family members. I have exchanged mail with Doctor Jean Lavelle in Java and William Denning in Bristol, both of whom had personal interactions with him, and spoken with a certain popular writer in Woking, author of a highly accurate and popular account of the war (anonymous here and in the narrative at his request), who is one of the last people still living who was a personal friend of Andrew Ogilvy.

I am aware that traditional journalism is falling out of fashion (as are many other things after the war; there are far fewer papers in our stands than there were when I was a boy), and I am not the man my father was, but I feel that this is the only way I can bestow honour to a man who, I have come to believe, despite his faults, was not the fool current wisdom sees him as. Andrew Ogilvy saw the best in the Martians and his fellow Earthmen, a mistake that led to his miserable death and postmortem disgrace. However foolish that might have been, I would argue that we could use a few more fools like him.

-_ J. H. , 1915_


	2. The Telescope

To imagine Andrew Ogilvy's early life, you must imagine Ottershaw as a small-but-thriving village in 1855, well before the fighting-machines and before the Martian cylinder landed. Homes were still standing, not gutted black by fire, and people walked the streets fearlessly. No one thought about Mars outside of one more comforting light in the sky before they went to bed. It was a small-but-thriving community, and as shocking as this may be to those born after the Martian war Horsell Common was a peaceful place instead of a place of somber reflection and death.

His parents were Angus and Charlotte Ogilvy, a middle-aged couple whose families had lived in Surrey for several generations, although Angus's ancestors hailed from the Scottish Highlands, a fact that he was immensely proud of. His family was old and important, but the branch that Andrew and his parents belonged to was not one of the ancient Ogilvy lines back in Scotland who fought alongside the likes of Charlie Stuart and Robert the Bruce. They were, for the most part, middle-class artisans and tradesmen who stayed out of trouble.

This didn't bother Angus, who came to Ottershaw from Leatherhead several years before his son's birth to find work. He bought a failing tannery and rebuilt it, turning it into a mild success. In the process, he fell in love with Charlotte Williams, a pretty young woman who loved the young man's pleasant face and manners back. He married her a year after they met, in what was by all suggestions a sincere love match, and in two more years they had their first child, naming him after a distantly remembered grand-uncle from Angus' side.

Andrew Ogilvy himself was born in August 13, 1860, taken out by a hired nursemaid and brought screaming into the light. He was a relatively small baby, a fact which is remarked on in his birth records. He was baptized several days later, once his mother felt well again, and so joined Ottershaw's community. Like the majority of the children in town, he was taught as a schoolboy at the local church. Surviving records of his grades suggest that he was an average student, with the exception of his extraordinary mathematics scores, which were in hindsight the first hint of what he would grow up to be.

He was the oldest of three children. A younger brother, Rupert Ogilvy, was born a year later, along with a sister, Frances, in two more. Frances deeply admired her oldest brother, and Andrew appointed himself as her personal tutor. They were very dear friends from a relatively young age. Andrew personally taught her how to read and educated her in basic sciences beyond what she would have learned alone.

Unfortunately, his relationship with Rupert was much more venomous. The two boys' relationship was marred by envy on both ends - Rupert grew up to be the stronger and larger of the two while Andrew remained small and slender. Rupert was jealous of his brother's position as eldest, since family tradition decreed that Andrew would take over management of the Ogilvy tannery upon Angus's death. Andrew envied Rupert's fearlessness around other people and ability to stand up for himself.

Andrew Ogilvy himself was not an astronomer from birth, and if you had told him what his job as a man would be he would, I think, have been genuinely surprised. Ever since he was a boy his father made it clear that, one day, Andrew would be the owner and manager of the older Ogilvy's tannery. Up until he was about thirteen years old he had no particular issue with this. He didn't look forward to it, since he preferred calculations to physical labour, but he assumed that it was going to happen anyway. His father, taking advantage of his son's talent with mathematics, set him to work adding up prices and counting money. It was dull work for him, but his father paid him as generously as he could afford to, so he coped as best he could. Even as a child Ogilvy had an incredibly fast mind and despised boredom.

No one in Ottershaw saw anything special in Andrew Ogilvy back then. By all accounts, there was nothing remarkable about his appearance. As a boy he was lanky and plain-faced, his black hair a greasy, uncombed tangle. He was uncomfortable in crowds, largely for fear of the usual roughhousing. Even at that age, Andrew abhorred violence and would avoid a fight if he could help it. His lean body made it easy for him to wriggle into the shadows. He almost never raised his voice above speaking volume, and because of poor eyesight began wearing glasses by the time he was seven.

The other children thought him strange, although they tolerated him. The only fault that they found in him was that Andrew was hopeless at sports. At seven years of age he had twisted his leg in a football game, the injury so sudden and so fierce that he could hear the bone crack. He missed several weeks of school recovering in his bedroom, and for someone with a brain as agile as his this was an intolerable situation. He decided to make the best of it, reading and rereading his school's textbooks for something to do, Ever since then, he lost all interest in sports, much to the surprise of his few schoolfriends, and took to devouring books instead. Andrew Ogilvy had a ravenous appetite for learning, science a particular interest.

As a result, being Andrew Ogilvy's friend was a benefit - he often helped other boys with their work, establishing himself as an unofficial tutor for many of Ottershaw School's younger children. He did his work for free, since, as he explained, he already had paying work at his father's tannery. The owners of several local businesses, however, recognized the courteous young man who their children owed so much to. When a startled Andrew found himself handed a fresh roll from the baker, for example, he didn't know that he had taught the baker's son basic mathematics a week earlier. Never one to complain about good fortune, Andrew strolled off with a confused thanks and a full stomach.

He was more wary around the older boys, with a few exceptions. A young man named Jeremy Rourke was the most important of these exceptions - their fathers had been friends ever since Angus came to Ottershaw, and this friendship passed on through their sons. Jerry protected Andrew from schoolyard bullying, and in return Andrew saw to it that Jerry knew the latest in the sciences, from the discovery of dinosaurs to evolutionary theory. Andrew, almost uniquely among the students in his church school, embraced Darwinism wholeheartedly, and saw to it that his friend did, too, using a well-read copy of _The Origin of Species_. For a long time, astronomy was just one of his many interests, although he spent many a night outdoors even then. There were contributing factors - Andrew's guilty love of scientific romances was the most important, most importantly the space stories of Jules Verne. In our day, when space has become a source of terrible danger, Verne's novels on the matter have fallen from favor, but in Andrew Ogilvy's they were at their height of popularity, fueling the boy's love of the stars.

Ogilvy's permanent interest in astronomy, it is believed, was sparked one winter in 1868, when Angus took his three children into Leatherhead as part of the traditional scouring of toy stores for potential Christmas presents. Frances wanted a hobby-horse while Rupert, eager to assert himself in front of his older brother, wanted a bicycle. Andrew, on the other hand, didn't care for hobby-horses or bicycles. He had his eye firmly set on a working miniature telescope for sale in the neighboring shop's window. He turned out his pockets. He only had five pounds - not nearly enough. He sighed, disappointed, and pulled his coat closer. While he didn't know why he wanted it, some instinct told him that it was his. Andrew wasn't there, as his younger brother was already looking at toys inside.

"What is it, Andrew?" Angus Ogilvy knelt beside his son, who shifted uncomfortably. "What would you like Father Christmas to bring you this year?"

Andrew shrugged, trying not to seem too unhappy. "Doesn't matter, Father. We can't afford it."

"Tell me what it is, son - I'll have a word with old Father Christmas and he if he can't arrange a special treat for young Andy Ogilvy. He's been a good boy all year, and he deserves a proper reward." Angus gently played with Andrew's hair. "It's that toy telescope over there, isn't it?"

Andrew managed a stiff nod. "Yes. I - I would like to learn how to stargaze properly. You know, for after work. I've been reading a bit about astronomy lately, and I'd like to try my hand at it myself. Jerry says I'd be good at it." He took on a pleading look, eyes wide. "If Rupert will get his bicycle and Frances her hobby-horse, can't I have my telescope? I promise not to break it."

Angus gave a gentle laugh. "Calm down, lad. Wait and see what Father Christmas brings you in a month's time. I'll be sure to tell him that Andy wants a toy telescope. He must think that you come up with the strangest gifts. All you usually ask for is books. You haven't even finished that Verne novel he brought you last year."

"Its title is _From the Earth to the Moon_, Father," Andrew said with a sigh, "and I've already read it three times."

"Three times! Smart lad, eh?" Angus clapped Andrew on the back."That's my son. Andrew Ogilvy, the little professor of Ottershaw. Is Verne why you're so interested in the stars all of a sudden, then?"

Turning away to look at the telescope, Andrew shook his head. "Not particularly, no. I just want something to do after school other than working in the tannery all day long." He looked back with a quick, hopeful smile. "Ah, and Jerry said he'd like to come to our house for a visit over the holidays if I get one."

"Well," Angus said, "we'll have to wait and see. There's a good chance, though you shouldn't get your hopes up." Andrew only heard the first part of the second sentence, of course. He nudged Frances knowingly. "Tell Rupert that if he's good I'll take him out to Horsell Common for stargazing once my telescope comes. You can come, too, if you'd like. I'll teach you everything I know." He couldn't resist puffing himself up a bit.

Frances laughed at her brother's posturing. "I'll go - but I don't think Rupert will. He doesn't care for telescopes."

Andrew shrugged, brushing it off. "His loss. It'll just be you, me, Jerry, and a few of his mates from school. We'll make a fine team of astronomers."

"His loss. Come _on_, Andy, let's go inside. It's cold." Frances went off to tug at their father's shoulder, dragging Angus into the toy shop to show him what Andrew assumed was the hobby-horse that she wanted. While Andrew wasn't interested, he didn't want to upset his sister, and so he sat there in front of the window, absorbing every detail of the toy telescope. Even for a toy, it was a handsome model, and was painted bronze to look just like the real thing. It wouldn't work as well as the telescopes that real astronomers used, but it would do for now. Just looking at it made Andrew imagine opening it on Christmas Day. He felt a little warmer just by thinking about it.

While he was naturally skeptical about Father Christmas, it wouldn't do to tempt fate at this stage. The telescope was too important. With it, he could learn how to do real science instead of just gossiping about it with his friends. Andrew practically grinned at the thought. To prepare himself, he decided to read every book about the art and science of astronomy that he could get his hands on, so that when the time came to demonstrate the telescope to his friends he would know precisely what to do.

"Andrew Ogilvy! Come inside, you'll catch your death out there!" His father's sharp voice broke Andrew out of his reverie. "Rupert and Frances want to show you what they want for Christmas."

He didn't have much choice in the matter, then. Andrew sighed, touching the glass with one hand, his warm breath fogging the window. _I'll be back, just you wait._ Giving the telescope one last look, he reluctantly joined his father and siblings inside, trying not to think about it. He would have to wait until Christmas Day to see if Father Christmas would come through. Until that time came, though, he had more important things to do.


End file.
